5 hours ago, Harryinny said:

Delicious, too bad he smokes.

Yuck!  But I did like his responses in the interview section.  He comes off as a very bright, well-spoken guy.  His ad is in English but interview responses in Spanish, which makes me wonder about his English fluency.  Then again, language barrier is a hurdle easily managed by most on this forum.

49 minutes ago, mike carey said:

Whatever you do, don't tell @nycman you prefer a bagel from Queens!

Grin!

I've seen Utopia Bagels featured in a lot of "best NYC bagel" YouTube videos.  Despite baking up a massive number of bagels daily, apparently they refuse to cut corners and still make their bagels to the same standard that made them famous.

Too bad my aunt no longer lives in Queens because it would have been an easy trip from her house.  Nonetheless, thanks for the tip, @BenjaminNicholas.  If I'm ever lucky enough to be anywhere near Utopia Bagels, a top-notch bagel is well-worth making a detour.

12 hours ago, 56harrisond said:

In the abstract, this guy isn't my type at all.  I like daddies not twinks, beefy not slim, furry not smooth.  That said, there's always the occasional exception.  If I ever saw this young man in person, my head would explode.

Fred Goldman said as recently as 2 years ago that his family had yet to receive a cent of the settlement that OJ owed them.  I wonder if they and Nicole Brown's family will get anything now.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In January, I had the pleasure of attending two holiday parties. Both events were potlucks, to which I gladly contributed dishes. The hosts provided beverages like water, tea and coffee. The parties were well-attended, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

However, a few days after each gathering, I received a message from the hosts. They mentioned the amount they had spent on the party and requested a $10-$30 donation from the guests, providing their financial app details for this purpose.

This approach struck me as more akin to a fundraiser than a social gathering among friends. Is this a standard practice in modern times? Is it now customary for hosts to ask for post-event monetary contributions to cover their expenses? I want to ensure I am up to date with current social etiquette.

GENTLE READER: Putting aside the audacity of asking guests both to cater the party and to pay for their drinks, Miss Manners cannot imagine how one could even consume $10 of water, tea or coffee.

So, it would seem that guests are being charged rent for the use of the venue as well. This borders on extortion.

There is nothing wrong with an agreed-upon potluck, but that is where it stops. The act of holding a party must assume some of the responsibility for basic amenities. Even restaurants don’t charge for plain water.

OR:  In lieu of financial compensation, send both hostesses a bouquet of dead, rotting roses with a beautiful handwritten note that it's tacky as shit to grub for money after a potluck.

I know this thread is supposed to be for good movies/series on Netflix, but hopefully no one minds if I post a public service announcement:  avoid Strange Way of Life like a broken petri dish of Ebola!  I get the temptation:  a short film by legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, two great veterans Ethan Hawke & Pedro Pascal, a gay storyline, and an appearance by Élite heartthrob Manu Rios (he only sings the theme song, doesn't play a role).

But eek! it's awful!!  Clunky, awkward dialogue that sounds like it was written by an unprecocious high school student, a plot that never develops (even a 30-minute short can portray a full plot), it all feels like a golden opportunity that was foolishly squandered.

Maybe it was the challenge of doing an English-language project, but another negative for Almodóvar fans is the short sorely lacks the director's signature style.  No dark comedy, no oddball characters, no irreverence, this short might as well have been directed by ChatGPT.  Do yourself a huge favor and stay the hell away.

This guy is actually one of the escorts discussed in The Deli (thank you, @ProjectX).  I liked his legs so much I had to re-post the pic here.

On 4/14/2024 at 12:31 AM, samhexum said:

 

A friend of a friend made adobo (kind of a stew w/garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, bit of brown sugar -- unofficial national dish of the Philippines) that was the best I ever had (trust me, I've had a lot of adobo in my life).  When I begged her for the recipe, she said she couldn't give me one because she just eyeballs everything.

I'm sure I could figure out a good recipe for adobo on my own by starting off with a YouTube recipe video and then finessing it.  The problem is that because adobo really stinks up the house, I don't want to make it on the regular.  Too bad because it's a simple recipe, pretty much the Filipino can't-fail dish.

2 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

I've chatted with him through his Twitter account, but he's strictly a top so we aren't a match.

A real pity because he has a cute round little ass, that I could make good work with.  😈

3 hours ago, Ali Gator said:

My city did this to a major thoroughfare which is lined with businesses and restaurants. They narrowed a two lane road (which lead traffic out of the downtown to the on-ramp of a major highway) to a one lane road, removed parking spaces and installed a barely-used bike lane to the anger of business owners. Mostly to appease the college students at three nearby universities.

After four years of traffic turmoil and a major loss to businesses, the new mayor (elected last November) has finally listened to the business community and angry drivers and has decided to remove the bike lane and revert back to the way things used to be by the end of May. It will cost taz payers a few hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this - same as it cost to install the bike lane in 2020. 

If the bike lane was barely used, then the college students who fought so hard for its installation didn't actually bother using it.  Note that the students didn't bear the negative economic impact, the business owners did.  I hope the local government increased the 3 nearby universities' property taxes to pay for the bike lane boondoggle, but I have my doubts.  The whole fiasco ended up as just a very expensive exercise in virtue-signaling.

If the 3 universities had sent out a letter to all the student activists that their tuition would go up $300 to pay for the bike lane, I wonder how many would still have favored it.  Life is so damn easy when you don't have to pay for the consequences of your actions.

The FBI has opened up a criminal probe into the cargo ship's "malfunction" that caused it to crash into the bridge.  Who knows what will come out of the criminal investigation, but in civil court lawyers aplenty are pursuing compensation both for repair costs, which will obviously be substantial, as well as for the deaths of the 6 workers.

Ben Shelton became the highest-ranked American male this week after Taylor Fritz lost in the 1st round of Monte Carlo.  Shelton is currently #14, Fritz #15.  I knew Shelton would end up being the top American, just didn't think it would happen quite this fast.  Congrats to Ben and his coach (and dad) Bryan!

On 12/5/2023 at 4:00 PM, Danny-Darko said:

The wrestler's hot, but I think the coach (or whoever that is) standing behind him is even hotter 😍

52 minutes ago, Peter Eater said:

Actually it’s three German-Moroccan kickboxer brothers who Mohammed hangs with, but yes, Abubakr Abu Azaitar is by far his favorite. (He’s got 2 million followers on IG.) Mo divorced the wife several years ago.

King's got good taste; the boyfriend's hot.

1 minute ago, sniper said:

WhileI believe he did it, I think I would have felt compelled to acquit based on the cops' handling of the blood sample. They injected reasonable doubt into the case by fucking taking his blood to the crime scene. They were sloppy and possibly actually criminal themselves if they scattered some there.

True, the pretrial and trial were a total shitshow.  The one good thing that came out of the monstrous injustice of the OJ verdict is that the State of California cleaned up all the bungling incompetence in police departments and DA offices.  The new professionalism is credited for getting a conviction in the Scott Peterson trial and others which were thought to be much more difficult cases to prove guilt.

In a recent interview with one of the OJ jurors, she admitted that 90% of the jurors knew OJ murdered Ron & Nicole but voted to acquit out of revenge for what happened to Rodney King.  In other words, the Cult of Victimhood let a vicious murderer walk scot free.  Just the thought of that makes me sick.

7 hours ago, BOZO T CLOWN said:

ECONOMY

Consumer prices rose 3.5% from a year ago in March, more than expected

Consumer prices rose 3.5% from a year ago in March, more than expected

WWW.CNBC.COM

---

The consumer price index in March was expected to increase 3.4% from a year ago, according to the Dow Jones consensus estimate.

"The consumer price index accelerated at a faster than expected pace in March, pushing inflation higher and likely keeping the Federal Reserve on hold with interest rates.

The CPI, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the economy, rose 0.4% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 3.5%, or 0.3 percentage point higher than in February, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% gain and a 3.4% year-over-year level.

Excluding volatile food and energy components, core CPI also accelerated 0.4% on a monthly basis while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared to respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%."

 

Anyone that has to go to the store and buy food or has to fill the car with gas knows inflation never went away.

 

Bozo heard a great line:
Q. What is the most expensive vehicle to operate in the US today?
A. A grocery cart.

 

BTC

 

Love the grocery cart joke 😆 

Everyone assumed that the Fed would drop its rate this year, but I grow more doubtful by the day.

If you look at rates over the past 50 years, today's rate isn't particularly high.  Is another 0.25% increase or two all that outrageous a proposition?  Inflation has been way too high for way too long.  We need it to drop below 2%.  I'd like to see it below 1%, but that's way too wishful thinking.

6 minutes ago, MikePDNA51 said:

government borrowing money is not like me or you borrowing money.  Remember the USA government has the primary reserve currency. When countries to foreign exchanges they use USA dollars.  Taxes, due at the end of the week, will obviously pay for a lot. 

So no big whoop?  I strongly disagree.  Somw context, from the Peterson Foundation:

What is more, spending on interest will surpass federal outlays on major budget categories over the next few years:

• In fiscal year 2024, the federal government will spend more on interest than on defense.
• In fiscal years 2024 through 2026, interest payments will exceed the amount that the federal government spends on Medicare (net of offsetting receipts). Net Medicare spending will overtake interest payments in the following years, except for 2029.
• In fiscal year 2025, the federal government will spend more on interest than on non-defense discretionary, which includes funding for transportation, veterans, education, health, international affairs, natural resources and environment, general science and technology, general government, and more.

2 hours ago, augustus said:

The impact of the massive federal debt is unknowable but in any scenario is not good. Devaluation, hyperinflation and economic devastation are all possible. What is not possible is for nothing to happen.  When you're borrowing money just to pay the interest on the money you borrowed earlier, its game over.  

We are adding $1 trillion in debt to the federal deficit every 100 days.  Not if, but when the gigatons of caca hit the fan, it's gonna be ugly.

1 hour ago, GCMan said:

1) Alan Ritchson

2) Henry Cavill

28 minutes ago, nycman said:

Average it out…he’s a 3/10 and his "life" looks boring as hell.

Boring as hell because it's fake as hell, i.e., about as "real" as reality TV.  And yes, I found the persona he affects for his YT channel super-annoying, like watching someone's perpetual adolescence.  If his parents are subsidizing this self-indulgence, then they're doing him a real disservice.

54 minutes ago, purplekow said:

Big jump from lacking an answer to never been challenged and unquestioning.  My poker table discussion rarely, dare I say never,  have any depth, perhaps he realized that the felt may not be the place to have this conversation.  

From the deer-in-the-headlights look on his face, I'm pretty sure he had never gotten any pushback on the all-importance of diversity, whether at a poker table or any other setting.  In any case, I wouldn't hire this abject dumbsh*t to sharpen pencils, nor should anyone else.